The terms of office of ten Constitutional Court judges end on Friday, but they will remain in office for a maximum of six months until their successors are elected. The President of the Constitutional Court, Miroslav Separovic, assumes that this will happen within the constitutional deadline.

“The Constitutional Court will function normally until then. The judges whose term of office is expiring will remain in office until the new judges are elected, on 7 December at the latest. I expect that the appointment of the new judges will be finalised within the constitutional deadline,” said Separovic, one of the three constitutional judges whose term of office lasts until 2025.

According to the Constitution, the 13 judges of the Constitutional Court are elected by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, i.e. by an agreement between the parliamentary majority and the opposition in the form and procedure prescribed by the relevant constitutional law.

“The term of office of a judge of the Constitutional Court shall be eight years and may be extended by up to six months in exceptional cases if no new judge has been elected or has not taken office when the term of office of an incumbent judge expires,” the Constitution states.

A call for applications could be published next week

The parliamentary committee responsible for constitutional matters is conducting the procedure for nominating and proposing candidates for Constitutional Court judges to parliament. The proposed candidates should come from among reputable jurists, in particular judges, prosecutors, lawyers and university professors of law, and their number must exceed the number of required constitutional judges, who must ultimately receive the support of at least 101 MPs.

The chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on the Constitution, Rules of Procedure and Political System, Ivan Malenica, told Nova TV that a call for applications may be issued next week. “But we will take some more time to see when we will publish the call to make sure it is transparent,” he said

The judges whose terms expire on Friday are Andrej Abramovic, Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic, Snježana Bagic, Branko Brkic, Mario Jelusic, Lovorka Kusan, Josip Leko, Davorin Mlakar, Rajko Mlinaric and Miroslav Sumanovic.

The three judges whose term of office lasts until October 2025 are Miroslav Separovic, Mato Arlovic and Goran Selanec.